A participatory approach to tracking system transformation in clusters and innovation ecosystems – evolving practice in Sweden’s Vinnväxt programme
(2021) Science and innovation – an uneasy relationship? Rethinking the roles and relations of STI policies- Abstract
- For decades, cluster initiatives and funding programmes have been used as instruments of industrial and innovation policy – addressing system failures by strengthening linkages among actors, fostering innovation and developing more effective innovation systems. More recently, a growing segment of these initiatives are also focused on driving system-level transformation and contributing to broader societal benefits. This segment is characterised by larger-scale and longer-term strategic efforts involving a variety of stakeholders across different parts of society, aimed at contributing to addressing societal challenges. These characteristics are shared with the emerging frame of transformative innovation policy, which highlights the... (More)
- For decades, cluster initiatives and funding programmes have been used as instruments of industrial and innovation policy – addressing system failures by strengthening linkages among actors, fostering innovation and developing more effective innovation systems. More recently, a growing segment of these initiatives are also focused on driving system-level transformation and contributing to broader societal benefits. This segment is characterised by larger-scale and longer-term strategic efforts involving a variety of stakeholders across different parts of society, aimed at contributing to addressing societal challenges. These characteristics are shared with the emerging frame of transformative innovation policy, which highlights the importance of embedded practices of learning and reflexivity to enable continuous monitoring of progress and inform and adapt the direction of systemic change processes – requiring new approaches to governance and evaluation.
Despite deep experience with implementing cluster programmes and other systemic innovation policy instruments, practitioners still struggle with monitoring and evaluation. Current approaches focus on evidencing strengthened innovation (and economic effects) on the level of firms and research actors, and fail to capture contributions on the level of the broader system.
This paper presents an evolving approach for tracking system transformation in clusters and collaborative innovation initiatives. Through an interactive, co-development process with initiatives in the Swedish Vinnväxt programme, this research proposes a definition and set of system effect categories for cluster initiatives, and tests a participatory approach for tracking their contribution to system-level change over time, providing an initial case o (Less) - Abstract (Swedish)
- For decades, cluster initiatives and funding programmes have been used as instruments of industrial and innovation policy – addressing system failures by strengthening linkages among actors, fostering innovation and developing more effective innovation systems. More recently, a growing segment of these initiatives are also focused on driving system-level transformation and contributing to broader societal benefits. This segment is characterised by larger-scale and longer-term strategic efforts involving a variety of stakeholders across different parts of society, aimed at contributing to addressing societal challenges. These characteristics are shared with the emerging frame of transformative innovation policy, which highlights the... (More)
- For decades, cluster initiatives and funding programmes have been used as instruments of industrial and innovation policy – addressing system failures by strengthening linkages among actors, fostering innovation and developing more effective innovation systems. More recently, a growing segment of these initiatives are also focused on driving system-level transformation and contributing to broader societal benefits. This segment is characterised by larger-scale and longer-term strategic efforts involving a variety of stakeholders across different parts of society, aimed at contributing to addressing societal challenges. These characteristics are shared with the emerging frame of transformative innovation policy, which highlights the importance of embedded practices of learning and reflexivity to enable continuous monitoring of progress and inform and adapt the direction of systemic change processes – requiring new approaches to governance and evaluation.
Despite deep experience with implementing cluster programmes and other systemic innovation policy instruments, practitioners still struggle with monitoring and evaluation. Current approaches focus on evidencing strengthened innovation (and economic effects) on the level of firms and research actors, and fail to capture contributions on the level of the broader system.
This paper presents an evolving approach for tracking system transformation in clusters and collaborative innovation initiatives. Through an interactive, co-development process with initiatives in the Swedish Vinnväxt programme, this research proposes a definition and set of system effect categories for cluster initiatives, and tests a participatory approach for tracking their contribution to system-level change over time, providing an initial case on which to build and apply in other transformative innovation programmes. (Less)
Please use this url to cite or link to this publication:
https://lup.lub.lu.se/record/a433117d-e17e-41aa-ad71-c49707a5d180
- author
- Wise, Emily LU ; Eklund, Moa ; Smith, Madeline and Wilson, James
- organization
- publishing date
- 2021-06-11
- type
- Contribution to conference
- publication status
- published
- subject
- keywords
- Tracking system transformation, cluster evaluation, system level effects, participatory evaluation approach
- pages
- 28 pages
- conference name
- Science and innovation – an uneasy relationship? Rethinking the roles and relations of STI policies
- conference location
- Oslo, Norway
- conference dates
- 2021-06-09 - 2021-06-11
- language
- English
- LU publication?
- yes
- id
- a433117d-e17e-41aa-ad71-c49707a5d180
- date added to LUP
- 2021-07-27 15:22:22
- date last changed
- 2021-10-25 10:39:30
@misc{a433117d-e17e-41aa-ad71-c49707a5d180,
abstract = {{For decades, cluster initiatives and funding programmes have been used as instruments of industrial and innovation policy – addressing system failures by strengthening linkages among actors, fostering innovation and developing more effective innovation systems. More recently, a growing segment of these initiatives are also focused on driving system-level transformation and contributing to broader societal benefits. This segment is characterised by larger-scale and longer-term strategic efforts involving a variety of stakeholders across different parts of society, aimed at contributing to addressing societal challenges. These characteristics are shared with the emerging frame of transformative innovation policy, which highlights the importance of embedded practices of learning and reflexivity to enable continuous monitoring of progress and inform and adapt the direction of systemic change processes – requiring new approaches to governance and evaluation. <br/>Despite deep experience with implementing cluster programmes and other systemic innovation policy instruments, practitioners still struggle with monitoring and evaluation. Current approaches focus on evidencing strengthened innovation (and economic effects) on the level of firms and research actors, and fail to capture contributions on the level of the broader system. <br/>This paper presents an evolving approach for tracking system transformation in clusters and collaborative innovation initiatives. Through an interactive, co-development process with initiatives in the Swedish Vinnväxt programme, this research proposes a definition and set of system effect categories for cluster initiatives, and tests a participatory approach for tracking their contribution to system-level change over time, providing an initial case o}},
author = {{Wise, Emily and Eklund, Moa and Smith, Madeline and Wilson, James}},
keywords = {{Tracking system transformation; cluster evaluation; system level effects; participatory evaluation approach}},
language = {{eng}},
month = {{06}},
title = {{A participatory approach to tracking system transformation in clusters and innovation ecosystems – evolving practice in Sweden’s Vinnväxt programme}},
year = {{2021}},
}